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Films You Have to See: Dead of Night (1945)

Adam Scovell

February 24 2014, 5:09pm, The Times

Mervyn Johns encounters a malevolent dummy in the most celebrated sequence from Dead of Night

Until quite recently, a myth had been nurtured around the films produced by Ealing Studios. Despite a huge catalogue of work, the studio had become more famous for well-crafted comedies than other genres. In fact, even in their most popular comedies the studio had a dark vein which shot through a vast array of their work. This can be seen in many films from the black comedy of Alexander Mackendrick’s The Ladykillers (1955) to the frankly shocking brutality in Alberto Cavalcanti’s Went the Day Well? (1942).

One film from the studio sticks out in this examination of darker territory - their only true horror film, Dead of Night (1945). During the Second World War, horror films had been virtually banned from being made in the United…

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